I have always been known as a crafter and this fantastic photography journey has offered up a whole new world of crafting adventures. I’ve recently, as I mentioned before, been consumed by house to “control” the light. I started out with this fascination with ring lights and now have moved to other modifiers. I thought some of you might be interested in following me on my lighting journey so, here we go!
This weeks addition? Beauty dishes.
Wikipedia defines a beauty dish as - A beauty dish is a type of photographic lighting device, one of a number of photographic soft light devices. A beauty dish uses a parabolic reflector to distribute light towards a focal point. The light created is between that of a direct flash and a softbox, hence giving the image a wrapped, contrasted look, which adds a very dramatic effect.
I saw one of my favorite photographers use one on a free seminar and was seriously considering just buying one till I found this blog.
I varied mine slightly though. My first mistake however was that I used an 18 inch plastic bowl. Too big and too heavy for my little flash. That and the fact I am a spray painting moron. Holy drips. Hot mess. Totally hot mess. My friend Carley was here yesterday and I tried it on her but it was and is an epic fail. Back to the drawing board.
Did not work, will recycle it into something else. Then I remembered at Target they had white serving bowls. Great right? Yeah hardly. They’re like melamine, I think and hard to cut. My poor husband dug through it for a good while. I’d suggested that he drill into it before but he wasn’t game. The result was many cracks but I think it’s fine. He cut a hole the shape of my flash head in it, I sanded it out and lined it with masking take. I think I will get some white duct tape though while I am out today just because I think it’s sturdier and nicer looking. I don’t want to look totally DIY!
Anyway, from there I used a plastic jar with a white lid with a convex mirror glued to the inside. I glued the lid of the jar to the bottom of the jar and then glued the entire thing inside the bowl. Love me some epoxy.
I do need to find someway to properly secure it to the flash itself but this works for now and I am happy with the results. Below is the final product.
Target, the source of so much inspirations.
And then the final photo. I think my besides how beautiful the light falls around her, I love the catchlights.
I get that “ringflash” feel from it and I like how the shadows fall. This is fairly straight on. When I have a more willing model I will get some more angles and various combinations. Overall though I am glad I made it and while I still may buy a “real” one. I think this will work in the mean time.
What next though? I think I may try and make my own background, canvas and paint
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Seeyou next time!
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